Arun Shourie
"Congress insists PM ignored I-B reports on Kargil," ran the six column heading of The Indian Express on 16 September. Other papers too gave much prominence to the allegation. This time the Congress spokesman had used as his peg a front-page story in The Tribune of that morning about a "strategy backgrounder" which the paper said the Army had prepared and circulated.
Entitled, "PM ignored intelligence reports," the front page story of The Tribune was an elaborate one. It claimed that the Army Headquarters "has gone to the extent of blaming Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee for ignoring intelligence reports on the intrusion." "The strategy paper, 'Important issues: Case of Brigadier Surinder Singh,' prepared and circulated recently by the AHQ clearly states that it was possible that the Prime Minister may have been given some information of Pakistan's designs by RAW and IB, but he ignored it, 'in the context of the Lahore Bus ride.' " "The paper has made allegations against the Government for ignoring its needs," The Tribune reported. But not just against the Government, it would seem! For The Tribune went on to report that "the strategy paper makes allegations against all and sundry." "Similarly, the Joint Intelligence Committee, whose responsibility is to carry out an assessment of threat and prepare position papers, never did so," the newsreport quoted the strategy paper to have said...
Every syllable of the story smacked of concoction. The title, Army Headquarters suddenly going back on what it has itself been maintaining, its doing so before the internal review instituted by the Army Chief has been completed, its doing so before the Subramanyam Committee has completed even its hearings.
The story was replete with nonsense so patent that even a fool would have spotted it. Recall that sentence -- the one on which the Congress based its charge of the day -- "The strategy paper... clearly states that it was possible that the Prime Minister may have been given some information of Pakistan's designs by RAW and IB, but he ignored it, 'in the context of the Lahore Bus ride.' " That something "was possible". What was possible? That the Prime Minister "may have been given." And what may have he been given? "Some information of Pakistan's designs..."!
In one para -- and that too on the basis of "may be" raised to the power 3 -- the Army was said to have "clearly state(d)" that the Prime Minister may have been given information. Two paragraphs later the Army paper was said to have hurled allegations "at all and sundry."
"The failure is of external intelligence agencies," The Tribune quoted the "strategy backgrounder" to have observed, only to elaborate, "Military Intelligence Directorate is responsible for external intelligence"! Not only would that imply that Army Headquarters was owning up to the failure, it would imply that Army Headquarters does not know what the function of the Directorate of Military Intelligence is!
Within hours of the newspaper being available, the Army issued a strongly worded press release. "It is categorically stated that no 'strategy backgrounder' as mentioned in the article has either been prepared or disseminated to any source," the Army said. " ...The news item under reference is baseless, malicious and has been presented to tarnish the apolitical image of the Army," it stated. "The article appearing in The Tribune dated 15 September 1999 appears to be sponsored / published by an aggrieved party for self-motivated reasons best known to the individual sponsor. The Army Headquarters once again most emphatically denies preparation / dissemination of such a document."
The Prime Minister's Office also issued a denial -- just as categorical.
Both statements were available by early afternoon. But of course the Congress could not allow mere facts to come in the way of hurling its allegation-for-the-day!
The headlines secured, the Congress forgot all about the "strategy backgrounder" at its press briefing the next day!
But not The Asian Age! By the 18th September, it had an altogether new theory. It could not argue that the so-called "strategy backgrounder" was genuine. While earlier newspapers had been insinuating that the Army and the Government had been working hand-in-glove to cover up failure on the Kargil front, the paper now asserted that the Government had left the Army to fend for itself during the Kargil conflict, that the Army was incensed that the PM had kept silent on the controversies kicked up around Brigadier Surinder Singh. So much so that, without citing any source, the paper asserted, as the headline across the top of its front page proclaimed, that a war" had erupted between the PMO and the Army!
As for the Congress, The Tribune fabrication have been squeezed for such milk as it could yield, its allegation for the next day had at its prop statements which Niaz Naik, a former Foreign Secretary of Pakistan, and Sartaj Aziz, its current Foreign Minister had made. These gentlemen have to contend with the political turmoil that encircles Nawaz Sharief and his circle there. There is a war of statements going on there: that ex-diplomat had alleged that India and Pakistan had come close to an agreement on Kashmir, and it is the Pakistan Army which had killed it by its incursion into Kargil; the Foreign Minister -- who had earlier been saying that the Pakistan Army had done nothing in Kargil -- had countered by saying that whatever the Pakistan Army had done in Kargil was in the interests of Pakistan! That is the impulse and origin of statements emanating from Pakistan these days. But the sole concern of the Congress was to locate some news peg for its allegation-of-the-day.
Brajesh Mishra, the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, who is the one who had dealt with Niaz Naik, stated on record that no secret deal had been in the works. But for the Congress, the Indian Army is not to be believed, Indian civil servants are not to be believed, of course the Indian Prime Minister is not to be believed. But every tid bit from Pakistan is gospel truth.
Telling reciprocity! During the Kargil war the statements of Sonia Gandhi and her spokesmen were of such succour to Pakistan that they became top stars on Pakistan TV. During the elections, the statements from Pakistan have become props for the Congress!
The consequences are obvious. By making statements of Pakistani personnel as the basis for charges here, these spokesmen contrive a situation in which Pakistan can set the agenda of debate even during elections in India: they can say whatever they think will help the side they think is better for them.
The other side is that there are statements and statements of Pakistani politicians. To which of these would these spokesmen of the Congress respond? In her interview to the magazine Sunday of 1-7 August, 1999, Benazir Bhutto maintains that she and Rajiv came to an agreement about, among other things, "withdrawal from Siachin". As Indian forces alone are in control of Siachin, this would imply that Rajiv had agreed to withdraw Indian forces from Siachin. Benazir provides a circumstantial detail: she says that when she was at the Commonwealth meeting, Rajiv telephoned her and told her that while he could not see through the agreement during elections, he would implement it after the elections. The Congress lost.
Going by its criteria, would the Congress, therefore, explain how its much-vaunted Prime Minister agreed to hand back Siachin? Moreover, going by its daily mud-slinging about non-existent "secret deals", would the Congress explain whether Rajiv Gandhi took Parliament, to say nothing of the country into confidence before coming to such an agreement -- an agreement to vacate land which our Army has sacrificed so much to retain?
While it is at the job, will the Congress explain whether Pandit Nehru took the country, did he even take Parliament into confidence before halting our advancing troops in 1948, and thereby inflicting a loss of 83,100 sq km of territory on our country? Did he work out a national consensus, did he work out a consensus even in the Cabinet before needlessly referring Kashmir to the UN, and thus saddling us with the problem that plagues us to this day? He did not: Sardar Patel was ever so opposed to this unnecessary show of internationalism -- in fact, even Liaquat Ali was pleasantly surprised as even he had not asked for this to be done.
Dr P N Dhar, one of the main participants in the Simla negotiations, who later became Principal Secretary to Mrs Indira Gandhi, has disclosed on record that she and Z A Bhutto came to an agreement to convert the Line of Control into the international border between Indian and Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir. Indeed, this would have been a part of the documents signed at Simla but for Bhutto saying that such a step would disable him on his return, that instead it should be left out for the moment and he would see it through within a few months. Did Mrs Gandhi take the country or Parliament into confidence before coming to such an understanding?
Rajiv Gandhi commenced aid to LTTE: that has caused a lethal civil war in a neighbour which has been our friend for centuries, it has caused the death of over 1500 Indian soldiers. Did he take the country or Parliament into confidence before doing so? It is known, in fact, that even after he sent the Indian Army to fight the very terrorists that he had foolishly agreed to arm and equip, his Government continued assistance to those very terrorists. Is there a single instance of another Government arming terrorists who were killing its own soldiers? Did he work out a national consensus or take Parliament into confidence to continue assisting terrorists so that they could kill our soldiers?
But today, cock and bull concoctions about secret deals, peremptory demands about taking the country into confidence!
And in any case, where does the Congress allegation based on Niaz Naik's statement stand now? For just two days after the Congress built up its conspiracy theory on his reported assertion, Niaz Naik repudiated what had been attributed to him! The report which had him saying that India and Pakistan had been close to a secret deal was a "fabrication", he stated in a written statement.
No problem for the Congress. It had passed on to the next allegation!
Forgeries have of course been an industry with the Congress since Rajiv's time.
The "letter" which was supposed to have been written by the then Director of CIA, William Casey, to the President of the conservative think-tank, the Heritage Foundation of the USA -- spelling out a design to destabilise Rajiv's Government.
The forgeries to establish that V. P. Singh and his son, Ajeya Singh, had a foreign account in St. Kitts, that $ 21 million had been paid into it as kickbacks.
The forged letter by which my colleagues, S. Gurumurthy and A. Janakiraman were arrested, and V. P. Singh hounded on the ground that a foreign detective agency had been engaged to excavate facts about Rajiv's associates.
The "letter" which V. P. Singh was supposed to have written to the President naming his colleagues, Arun Nehru and Arif Mohammed Khan as having been involved in corrupt deals.
The "letter" JP was supposed to have written in which he was said to have called V. P. Singh "spineless" and much else.
The "hotel bills" proving Arun Nehru's stay in New York, and "telephone records" that established that he had been calling tax havens in the West Indies.
The "letter" to that same American detective in which V. P. Singh is supposed to have asked him to locate the foreign accounts of his colleagues -- including ones who were dead, like Karpoori Thakur! And so on.
In each case, there was a pattern. The forgery would be elaborate, as was the one in The Tribune, with details and all. It would appear in one, preferably out-of station paper: the St. Kitts forgeries started in distant Middle east, in The Arab Times! It would be picked up by one or two papers -- The Telegraph and The Hindustan Times led the rest in the St. Kitts affair. Waving these "news reports" Congressmen would hurl their falsehoods.
A well-practised routine, therefore. But even by the lamentable standards of the Congress, forgeries in this round mark a new low. They seek to implicate not just political opponents. They have implicated the Army of the country. First, spokesmen of the Congress talked of a letter and file that contained intelligence information that had been furnished to the Government about the Pakistani buildup. They spelled out an elaborate number. They declared that if the Government denied the existence of the letter and file, they would produce it. The Army stated that it wasn't just that there was no letter or file of that number, there was no numbering system that matched the number that had been put out. The Congress spokesmen just let the matter drop!
Next, they and friendly magazines like Outlook, flaunted "letters" that Brigadier Surinder Singh was said to have written in August and November, 1998, in which he was said to have warned the Army about the Pakistani build up. The letters had never been received in Army Headquarters, nor at any other level or part of the Army.
The Congress spokesman then flaunted a receipt which he said established that the letters had been received. Friendly papers -- some of which have been campaigning even more energetically for the Congress than Congressmen -- ran with this receipt. "Lying Kargil Generals nailed," ran the headline across the front page of The Asian Age. They reproduced the facsimile of the receipt.
The legend on the top of the receipt itself said that it was for a "Redressal of Grievance" communication from the Brigadier -- the officer had been transferred, he had filed an appeal against it. Moreover, it was dated 28 June, 1999. How could it prove the receipt of letters in August and November in the preceding year? On inquiry I learnt that this oddity had not been noticed!
But the next day the paper compounded the fib. "Army acknowledges receiving the letters," it proclaimed. What the Army had done was to state what the receipt itself stated, that the Redressal of Grievance communication had been received -- on 28 June, 1999. How did this amount to an acknowledgment that the letters in question -- ostensibly written in eight and eleven months earlier had been received?
But the paper was no less zealous than the Congress!
The remedies are obvious. Things have reached such a pit that readers should as a rule disbelieve what papers say till the record of the publication or journalist in question establishes to the contrary.
Second, newspapers should scrutinize each other's work, and report the findings to the reading public.
And in the present case so should at least two other institutions. The Election Commission has been so concerned about things that may affect the fairness of the election process. Surely, nothing but nothing has so polluted the electoral atmosphere, no one has done as much to mislead voters as the liars in the Congress. Why not make a study of the allegations which were hurled, and give us your finding about their veracity?
The other institution of course is the Press Council. Its function is to help maintain standards in the press. It is evident that the fabrications would have got nowhere -- not in 1987-89, not now -- without the active collaboration of some of our leading newspapers and magazines. Why not examine the allegations they broadcast, and what the basis was for them?
After all, to purvey a libel uttered by another is libel. To broadcast falsehood uttered by another is to compound it.
India Connect
September 21, 1999
Showing posts with label rajiv gandhi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rajiv gandhi. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Their Sacrifices: A Chapter from Tomorrow's Textbooks
Arun Shourie
In the beginning was a foreigner. He founded the Congress.
Then, no one did anything till the Nehru-Nehru (Father and Son) Family stepped forth. They firmly stamped the history of India with the twin features that characterise it in the first half of the 20th century: everything they did was a sacrifice, no one else made any sacrifices.
With the passing of the Father, the Son became the Father, and with the coming of the Daughter, the Nehru-Nehru Family came to be known as the Nehru-Gandhi Family. But it continued the noble tradition: everything they did was a sacrifice, no one else made any sacrifices.
Soon enough the country's interest demanded that the secret plans of the new Viceroy and his co-plotters be ferreted out. The Father therefore sacrificed that one thing to which he was so attached -- the sacred memory of his dear wife, who, having joined the Nehru-Nehru Family had already made the Supreme Sacrifice -- and let the Viceroy's wife fall for him.
Time flew yet again, and the cares of office began to weigh Father down. As president of the Congress and because of his own scholarship, he was of course aware of historical precedents of our rulers marrying foreign women to manage the household while they attended to affairs of State. But so as not to further disturb a people that had been so recently devastated, he sacrificed his love of history and its mores, and continued to live alone. That only weighed him down further.
Therefore, while her dear husband was busy in various adventures in Lucknow and Allahabad, the Daughter, Indira Gandhi, chose to stay in Delhi. Soon, she too sacrificed her marriage to devote herself to the one thing that was so necessary for our poor country -- the well-being of Father.
Then, as Father aged (as the original Father had before him), she sacrificed her devotion to housework and his care, and agreed to take over the presidentship of the Congress.
And then, she sacrificed her deep devotion to this hoary party, split it and threw out the blackguards -- all so as to free it, and therefore the country, from the clutches of The Syndicate.
And then, she sacrificed her respect for the elderly, and threw Morarji out -- so as to save the country from The Return of Reaction.
And then, out of her infinite love for the poor, and because of her exemplary fealty to the memory and inclinations of her father, she sacrificed her own pragmatism, and embraced socialism.
And then, seeing how those old stuck-in-the-muds, the judges, were going to impede the great things which were being done for the poor, she sacrificed her deep love for propriety, superseded three of them, and made yet another original, sterling contribution to world thought, the concept of a Committed Judiciary.
And then, as the wretches had still not stopped howling, she sacrificed her new love -- socialism -- for pragmatism; and thus we got the justly fabled "Twenty Point Programme" which, as everyone knows, catapulted our country to the very limits of prosperity.
And then, as she was being attacked from all sides and being asked to resign just because some high court judge had found her guilty of electoral fraud, her devoted son, Sanjay sacrificed his love of automobiles, and stepped forth to protect her from these evil machinations and conspiracies. And then, as misguided students, and their misguides -- JP and the rest started demanding that corruption and inefficiency be checked, she and Sanjay standing together sacrificed their deep attachment to probity and excellence, stood firm, refused to mend matters under duress, and thereby saved the country from extra-constitutional anarchy.
And then, as the bureaucratic machinery had become moribund, as the political leaders had become limp, she sacrificed her deep aesthetic love for consistency, and allowed Sanjay to station himself as The Unconstitutional Authority par excellence so as to kick-start the merely constitutional authorities.
And then, as the senile fools still did not abandon their unconstitutional ways, she sacrificed her deep commitment to democracy, and with the utmost reluctance so touching a characteristic of The Family -- and only to save the country from The Foreign Hand -- threw the entire oppositions as well as over a lakh of people into jail, and suspended the Constitution.
And then, so as to create an example that would inspire all budding entrepreneurs and thereby lift the country to ever greater heights, she sacrificed her own good name and ensured all official and non-official encouragement to Sanjay's dream project, the Maruti.
And then, precisely when she had acquired complete mastery over the entire country and everyone was ever so full of joy at the trains running on time, precisely when a great scholar, the then Congress president, had proclaimed, "Indira is India, India is Indira", she sacrificed her unrivaled, unquestioned position. and announced elections.
And then, just because the people had wiped her out and her party, she sacrificed even her prime ministership and agreed to go along with the verdict of the ignorant people -- a verdict she knew the blockheads would soon rue.
And then, as the Janata government floundered, she sacrificed the well-deserved peace and quiet she had at last got after so many years of travail, and agreed to take on the bother of once again ruling this wretched country.
And then, because his dear brother had sacrificed his very life for that ancient love of the Nehrus -- aviation, Rajiv sacrificed his quiet family life, his love of the skies, his blossoming career in aviation and stepped forth to help Mummy -- so beleaguered and alone at the pinnacle.
And then, to save her beloved Punjab from the communal Akalis, she sacrificed her unshakable commitment to secularism, and put up Bhindranwale.
And then, when those foolish young students in Assam began demanding that foreigners not be smuggled on to electoral lists -- as the local Congress leaders were doing so as to enrich our culture through cross-fertilisation she sacrificed her deep love and compassion for all living beings; and let the forces shoot down 800 of them.
And then, when the damned students still did not listen, she sacrificed her undying love and commitment to the country's unity, and directed her minions to encourage the Bodo militants after all, how could mere students be allowed to decide what was good for the country; after all, how could mere students be allowed to challenge the decisions of Delhi?
And then, when Farooq and NTR would not see reason and submit to her, she sacrificed her unshakable commitment to the Constitution and, with the same pain and reluctance that we have encountered earlier, dismissed their elected governments -- she had nothing to gain from the step, she had everything to lose, but she knew that the country had to be made safe for the Constitution.
And then, as courts, legislatures, civil services with their interminable forms and procedures, were all standing in the way of the poor, she sacrificed her devotion to everything her father had helped construct, and, by skillful undermining, she put all institutions out of harm's way.
Unfortunately -- and this tragic thing happens so often in the case of the Nehru-Gandhi Family -- the followers of Bhindranwale did not see that Bhindranwale did not see that Bhindranwale would have never attained the heights he did it not been for her. They, therefore, sacrificed her life to their ingratitude.
And then, though the Mummy he had stepped forth to help had been taken away, Rajiv, disregarding the entreaties of his wife, sacrificed the easy-relaxed life of a mere MP, and became PM: for the earth which was quaking as the giant tree had fallen had to be calmed.
And then, to safeguard the country, he sacrificed his commitment and that of Olof Palme to the cause they had met to discuss, disarmament, and swiftly concluded the Bofors deal.
And then, he sacrificed his longing to spend time in India, and travelled incessantly all over the world to solve the problems which were buffeting it from all sides.
And then, on his visits to his beloved India, he sacrificed all his waking hours to solve its myriad difficulties.
And then, though he had not had anything to do with any of those things -- Bofors, the Airbus purchases, the settling of the HDW matter -- he sacrificed the good name of generations of the Nehru-Gandhi family, and, Shiva-like, took and held the entire poison of calumny himself: for, steeped as he was in the Nehru-Gandhi Family tradition, he saw that justice had to be done, and the middlemen, who after being abolished had only taken fees for "genuine industrial espionage," had to be protected from the hounds out to destabilise the country.
And then, moved to compassion by the plight of Tamils across the seas, he sacrificed his natural attachment to the principle which was a family heirloom, his own grandfather having invented it -- that of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries -- and opened training camps for Prabhakaran and his LTTE.
And then, as those unthinking judges gave a judgment which hurt the sentiments of the Muslims, he sacrificed his dedication to another of the Family's principles, secularism -- a principle which would not even have been in the Constitution but for his mother -- and passed a law to overturn the judgment.
And then, the effect this had on the sentiments of the Hindus moved him once again to compassion, and so he sacrificed his and the Nehru-Gandhi family's' unyielding devotion to the sentiments of Muslims, and had the locks to the Ram temple opened.
And then, his wife learnt that the Father (originally the Son) had been sacrificing his sleep to write every night to the Viceroy's wife. So as to spare the simple people of our country any trauma, and so as to protect the one institution which held the country together -- namely, the Nehru-Gandhi Family -- she sacrificed the pile of royalties she could have made, and, having kept them in her personal custody for long, refused to allow their publication.
And then, as Prabhakaran's followers turned out to be as ungrateful as those of Lt Bhindranwale, they too sacrificed his life to ingratitude.
And then, his wife, so as to prevent the rich of the country from squandering their money on worthless pursuits and so as to do good to which the Nehru-Gandhi Family has always been committed, sacrificed the good name of the Family once again, she sacrificed her own peace and quiet, and established The Foundation.
Today it is this noble lady, who has sacrificed the comforts of foreign climes, who continues the noble tradition of The Family. As she has said again and again, as she has shown again and again Shrimati Soniaji Gandhi is not interested in any post -- nor should too much be read into the "for now" she has used of late: she is just sacrificing her natural dislike for office to keep up our hopes by keeping alive the prospect of her taking on the reins.
She has stepped forth with the same great reluctance which has been a mark of the Nehru-Gandhi family as much as aviation. She has, like Rajiv before her, who had like his mother before him, done so only to save the country. And what reassurance she provides, the reassurance of things continuing: "The time has come," she told the people in her opening speech, "when I feel compelled to put aside my own inclinations and step forward. I am here not to seek political office or position but to share my concern over the country's future. We do not want our society to be broken into fragments" -- the same touching reluctance of the Nehru-Gandhi Family, the same putting aside of personal interest, the same disregarding of ones own inclination, the same devotion to our poor country. Reading it, citizens were thrilled, they felt 30 years younger, back in 1969 -- Mrs Gandhi, the Daughter, was alive and back in Mrs Gandhi, the Daughter-in-Law, and the entire reign lay before us again.
The first and second halves of the 20th century hold three lessons. These are: all the sacrifices made were made by the Nehru-Gandhi Family, and it is because of those sacrifices that the country has risen to the heights it has, second, that no one else has made or makes sacrifices, and that is why the country is on the verge of breaking into fragments. Third, and most important for the future, that everything the Nehru-Gandhi Family does is a sacrifice. If they do not accept the prime ministership, they are sacrificing the comforts, the pomp and show that go with the highest office. If they do accept it, they are sacrificing their own inclinations, they are sacrificing their personal interests and promising careers. If they accept security, they are sacrificing their privacy. If they do not, they are sacrificing their lives. If they keep rotten, minority governments in place, they are sacrificing what no one else ever sacrifices, power and its pelf. If they bring them down, they are sacrificing the comforts of back-seat driving. If they eat European food, they are sacrificing the food of the country they love so that our hungry millions may have more. If they eat Indian food, they are sacrificing the joys of their childhood. If they eat at all, they are sacrificing their vow to fast. If they fast, they are sacrificing food...
Question in BA Exam: Resolve the following paradox -- as The Foreign Hand has been so vital to our survival, the Congress having been founded by and then brought back to life by it, why did Indira Gandhiji accustom the country to looking upon The Foreign Hand with suspicion?
Model answer in Key: As Comrade Surjeet will soon explain, "Arey bhai, had not Comrade Lenin explained long ago? "There is Foreign Hand and there is Foreign Hand" The Italian Hand is very different from the American Hand The Italian Hand when it installs a government that might be in my hand is very different from the Italian Hand that removes a government that was in my hand."
Asian Age
January 23, 1998
In the beginning was a foreigner. He founded the Congress.
Then, no one did anything till the Nehru-Nehru (Father and Son) Family stepped forth. They firmly stamped the history of India with the twin features that characterise it in the first half of the 20th century: everything they did was a sacrifice, no one else made any sacrifices.
With the passing of the Father, the Son became the Father, and with the coming of the Daughter, the Nehru-Nehru Family came to be known as the Nehru-Gandhi Family. But it continued the noble tradition: everything they did was a sacrifice, no one else made any sacrifices.
Soon enough the country's interest demanded that the secret plans of the new Viceroy and his co-plotters be ferreted out. The Father therefore sacrificed that one thing to which he was so attached -- the sacred memory of his dear wife, who, having joined the Nehru-Nehru Family had already made the Supreme Sacrifice -- and let the Viceroy's wife fall for him.
Time flew yet again, and the cares of office began to weigh Father down. As president of the Congress and because of his own scholarship, he was of course aware of historical precedents of our rulers marrying foreign women to manage the household while they attended to affairs of State. But so as not to further disturb a people that had been so recently devastated, he sacrificed his love of history and its mores, and continued to live alone. That only weighed him down further.
Therefore, while her dear husband was busy in various adventures in Lucknow and Allahabad, the Daughter, Indira Gandhi, chose to stay in Delhi. Soon, she too sacrificed her marriage to devote herself to the one thing that was so necessary for our poor country -- the well-being of Father.
Then, as Father aged (as the original Father had before him), she sacrificed her devotion to housework and his care, and agreed to take over the presidentship of the Congress.
And then, she sacrificed her deep devotion to this hoary party, split it and threw out the blackguards -- all so as to free it, and therefore the country, from the clutches of The Syndicate.
And then, she sacrificed her respect for the elderly, and threw Morarji out -- so as to save the country from The Return of Reaction.
And then, out of her infinite love for the poor, and because of her exemplary fealty to the memory and inclinations of her father, she sacrificed her own pragmatism, and embraced socialism.
And then, seeing how those old stuck-in-the-muds, the judges, were going to impede the great things which were being done for the poor, she sacrificed her deep love for propriety, superseded three of them, and made yet another original, sterling contribution to world thought, the concept of a Committed Judiciary.
And then, as the wretches had still not stopped howling, she sacrificed her new love -- socialism -- for pragmatism; and thus we got the justly fabled "Twenty Point Programme" which, as everyone knows, catapulted our country to the very limits of prosperity.
And then, as she was being attacked from all sides and being asked to resign just because some high court judge had found her guilty of electoral fraud, her devoted son, Sanjay sacrificed his love of automobiles, and stepped forth to protect her from these evil machinations and conspiracies. And then, as misguided students, and their misguides -- JP and the rest started demanding that corruption and inefficiency be checked, she and Sanjay standing together sacrificed their deep attachment to probity and excellence, stood firm, refused to mend matters under duress, and thereby saved the country from extra-constitutional anarchy.
And then, as the bureaucratic machinery had become moribund, as the political leaders had become limp, she sacrificed her deep aesthetic love for consistency, and allowed Sanjay to station himself as The Unconstitutional Authority par excellence so as to kick-start the merely constitutional authorities.
And then, as the senile fools still did not abandon their unconstitutional ways, she sacrificed her deep commitment to democracy, and with the utmost reluctance so touching a characteristic of The Family -- and only to save the country from The Foreign Hand -- threw the entire oppositions as well as over a lakh of people into jail, and suspended the Constitution.
And then, so as to create an example that would inspire all budding entrepreneurs and thereby lift the country to ever greater heights, she sacrificed her own good name and ensured all official and non-official encouragement to Sanjay's dream project, the Maruti.
And then, precisely when she had acquired complete mastery over the entire country and everyone was ever so full of joy at the trains running on time, precisely when a great scholar, the then Congress president, had proclaimed, "Indira is India, India is Indira", she sacrificed her unrivaled, unquestioned position. and announced elections.
And then, just because the people had wiped her out and her party, she sacrificed even her prime ministership and agreed to go along with the verdict of the ignorant people -- a verdict she knew the blockheads would soon rue.
And then, as the Janata government floundered, she sacrificed the well-deserved peace and quiet she had at last got after so many years of travail, and agreed to take on the bother of once again ruling this wretched country.
And then, because his dear brother had sacrificed his very life for that ancient love of the Nehrus -- aviation, Rajiv sacrificed his quiet family life, his love of the skies, his blossoming career in aviation and stepped forth to help Mummy -- so beleaguered and alone at the pinnacle.
And then, to save her beloved Punjab from the communal Akalis, she sacrificed her unshakable commitment to secularism, and put up Bhindranwale.
And then, when those foolish young students in Assam began demanding that foreigners not be smuggled on to electoral lists -- as the local Congress leaders were doing so as to enrich our culture through cross-fertilisation she sacrificed her deep love and compassion for all living beings; and let the forces shoot down 800 of them.
And then, when the damned students still did not listen, she sacrificed her undying love and commitment to the country's unity, and directed her minions to encourage the Bodo militants after all, how could mere students be allowed to decide what was good for the country; after all, how could mere students be allowed to challenge the decisions of Delhi?
And then, when Farooq and NTR would not see reason and submit to her, she sacrificed her unshakable commitment to the Constitution and, with the same pain and reluctance that we have encountered earlier, dismissed their elected governments -- she had nothing to gain from the step, she had everything to lose, but she knew that the country had to be made safe for the Constitution.
And then, as courts, legislatures, civil services with their interminable forms and procedures, were all standing in the way of the poor, she sacrificed her devotion to everything her father had helped construct, and, by skillful undermining, she put all institutions out of harm's way.
Unfortunately -- and this tragic thing happens so often in the case of the Nehru-Gandhi Family -- the followers of Bhindranwale did not see that Bhindranwale did not see that Bhindranwale would have never attained the heights he did it not been for her. They, therefore, sacrificed her life to their ingratitude.
And then, though the Mummy he had stepped forth to help had been taken away, Rajiv, disregarding the entreaties of his wife, sacrificed the easy-relaxed life of a mere MP, and became PM: for the earth which was quaking as the giant tree had fallen had to be calmed.
And then, to safeguard the country, he sacrificed his commitment and that of Olof Palme to the cause they had met to discuss, disarmament, and swiftly concluded the Bofors deal.
And then, he sacrificed his longing to spend time in India, and travelled incessantly all over the world to solve the problems which were buffeting it from all sides.
And then, on his visits to his beloved India, he sacrificed all his waking hours to solve its myriad difficulties.
And then, though he had not had anything to do with any of those things -- Bofors, the Airbus purchases, the settling of the HDW matter -- he sacrificed the good name of generations of the Nehru-Gandhi family, and, Shiva-like, took and held the entire poison of calumny himself: for, steeped as he was in the Nehru-Gandhi Family tradition, he saw that justice had to be done, and the middlemen, who after being abolished had only taken fees for "genuine industrial espionage," had to be protected from the hounds out to destabilise the country.
And then, moved to compassion by the plight of Tamils across the seas, he sacrificed his natural attachment to the principle which was a family heirloom, his own grandfather having invented it -- that of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries -- and opened training camps for Prabhakaran and his LTTE.
And then, as those unthinking judges gave a judgment which hurt the sentiments of the Muslims, he sacrificed his dedication to another of the Family's principles, secularism -- a principle which would not even have been in the Constitution but for his mother -- and passed a law to overturn the judgment.
And then, the effect this had on the sentiments of the Hindus moved him once again to compassion, and so he sacrificed his and the Nehru-Gandhi family's' unyielding devotion to the sentiments of Muslims, and had the locks to the Ram temple opened.
And then, his wife learnt that the Father (originally the Son) had been sacrificing his sleep to write every night to the Viceroy's wife. So as to spare the simple people of our country any trauma, and so as to protect the one institution which held the country together -- namely, the Nehru-Gandhi Family -- she sacrificed the pile of royalties she could have made, and, having kept them in her personal custody for long, refused to allow their publication.
And then, as Prabhakaran's followers turned out to be as ungrateful as those of Lt Bhindranwale, they too sacrificed his life to ingratitude.
And then, his wife, so as to prevent the rich of the country from squandering their money on worthless pursuits and so as to do good to which the Nehru-Gandhi Family has always been committed, sacrificed the good name of the Family once again, she sacrificed her own peace and quiet, and established The Foundation.
Today it is this noble lady, who has sacrificed the comforts of foreign climes, who continues the noble tradition of The Family. As she has said again and again, as she has shown again and again Shrimati Soniaji Gandhi is not interested in any post -- nor should too much be read into the "for now" she has used of late: she is just sacrificing her natural dislike for office to keep up our hopes by keeping alive the prospect of her taking on the reins.
She has stepped forth with the same great reluctance which has been a mark of the Nehru-Gandhi family as much as aviation. She has, like Rajiv before her, who had like his mother before him, done so only to save the country. And what reassurance she provides, the reassurance of things continuing: "The time has come," she told the people in her opening speech, "when I feel compelled to put aside my own inclinations and step forward. I am here not to seek political office or position but to share my concern over the country's future. We do not want our society to be broken into fragments" -- the same touching reluctance of the Nehru-Gandhi Family, the same putting aside of personal interest, the same disregarding of ones own inclination, the same devotion to our poor country. Reading it, citizens were thrilled, they felt 30 years younger, back in 1969 -- Mrs Gandhi, the Daughter, was alive and back in Mrs Gandhi, the Daughter-in-Law, and the entire reign lay before us again.
The first and second halves of the 20th century hold three lessons. These are: all the sacrifices made were made by the Nehru-Gandhi Family, and it is because of those sacrifices that the country has risen to the heights it has, second, that no one else has made or makes sacrifices, and that is why the country is on the verge of breaking into fragments. Third, and most important for the future, that everything the Nehru-Gandhi Family does is a sacrifice. If they do not accept the prime ministership, they are sacrificing the comforts, the pomp and show that go with the highest office. If they do accept it, they are sacrificing their own inclinations, they are sacrificing their personal interests and promising careers. If they accept security, they are sacrificing their privacy. If they do not, they are sacrificing their lives. If they keep rotten, minority governments in place, they are sacrificing what no one else ever sacrifices, power and its pelf. If they bring them down, they are sacrificing the comforts of back-seat driving. If they eat European food, they are sacrificing the food of the country they love so that our hungry millions may have more. If they eat Indian food, they are sacrificing the joys of their childhood. If they eat at all, they are sacrificing their vow to fast. If they fast, they are sacrificing food...
Question in BA Exam: Resolve the following paradox -- as The Foreign Hand has been so vital to our survival, the Congress having been founded by and then brought back to life by it, why did Indira Gandhiji accustom the country to looking upon The Foreign Hand with suspicion?
Model answer in Key: As Comrade Surjeet will soon explain, "Arey bhai, had not Comrade Lenin explained long ago? "There is Foreign Hand and there is Foreign Hand" The Italian Hand is very different from the American Hand The Italian Hand when it installs a government that might be in my hand is very different from the Italian Hand that removes a government that was in my hand."
Asian Age
January 23, 1998
How Things Change !
Arun Shourie
These days when those guardians of secularism, our newspapers, refer to the Secular Front, they put the label -- "Secular" -- as well as the excuse -- "to combat communal forces" -- within inverted commas! Those who used to preface their remarks about Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee with, "The right man in the wrong party", suddenly emphasize only "The right man" part! "Things are all going right," says a person who has feasted off secular governments for ten years, as I run into him -- I don't immediately get what he thinks is going right, so out of touch have I been with him. "I mean, we are not going to get just a stable government, we are going to get a BJP government," he says enthusiastically. Suddenly multinationals are analyzing my friend Gurumurthy's articles and speeches -- how far will they take "swadeshi"?, they want to know, to what extent does the party share his views?, they search. Who will be the Finance Minister?, they ask.
Sitting alone in my study, poring over law reports of distant Pakistan, I am roused to the change. Friends ring up, distant acquaintances -- they want to help a national cause, they say; they want to reach Mr. Vajpayee and Mr. Advani through "a completely reliable person," "and who could be more reliable than you ?" All because I am "close-to-BJP" by acclamation, courtesy our secularist newspapers. The boons labelers confer... But how deep these impressions are etched : when I tell the callers the truth, as I ask them to contact someone like my friends Gurumurthy and Arun Jaitley, they conclude I am being difficult.
Thus, one of the rules in discourse is, "Even calumny has its recompense" -- were I to do no more than keep silent and not deny the rumour, I could, at least for a few weeks, make a handsome killing! The other rule surely is, "The greater the calumny, the swifter the turn-around." Secularists are the ones who have prepared the ground for the turn-around. In the name of secularism, in the name of "keeping the communal monster at bay", they legitimized the ganging up of all sorts -- with what face can they denounce the BJP today as it does the same thing ? Indeed, their discomfiture is even greater : for some of the persons and groups who are crossing over are the very ones whom the secularists had built up as the great dykes against communalism. Not only are they crossing over, while doing so they are declaring again and again that "secularism" was just a pretense, an excuse for grabbing office. "No party has pursued communal and casteist politics for as long as the Congress," declares the Congressman. "Behind the slogan of social justice, Laloo and Mulayam Singh have only spread casteism," says the progressive. "The Congress has only used the Muslims as a vote-bank," says the Muslim leader. "Kanshi Ram and Mayawati are not interested in the welfare of Dalits at all," certifies the BSP leader, "They are only interested in their dictatorship and corruption." "The Congress has done nothing for the tribals, it has just used and exploited them," says the tribal leader.
But isn't that exactly what communalists like me have been saying all along ?!
And there is always The Times Of India, one of the six great weather-vanes in the world. In the days that preceded Justice Sinha's judgment, it did all it could to denigrate JP and the students' movement. When in the wake of the judgment, it seemed for a moment that Mrs Gandhi could not hold on, the paper pronounced it was time for her to go. She had but to impose the Emergency, and this great oracle was denouncing JP -- he had compelled Mrs. Gandhi to call a halt to anarchy, she had been left with no alternative, she just had to move to save the country from foreign-controlled conspirators. Throughout the Emergency, it kept up a chorus -- paeans to trains running on time. The 1977 election results had but to come in, and its stalwarts declared, "We have been through veritable hell." A hell worse than the others, they said : for the others were doing the easy thing -- opposing the Emergency openly; the paper had been left with the much more onerous and dangerous task -- of opposing it from within while making sure that no one realized it was doing so!
In line with this tradition, the paper has let few excel it during the last few years in fabricating stories about the BJP -- one month the RSS had decided to dump Advani for Vajpayee, the next the RSS had decided to dump Vajpayee... The paper is still fabricating stories -- but now to catch BJP's eye!
On 22 December, it carries a story about Sonia going abroad. While published accounts say she is going to Europe to meet her son, the paper reports, "informed sources close to 10 Janpath claim [why they should advance the claim to The Times of India is naturally a trade secret] that it is not a vacation trip but is connected with serious business relating to her family matters..." "The same sources claim that Mrs. Gandhi will be visiting a South East Asian country, where she is expected to meet with a prominent Italian businessman who left the country several years ago." Mystery, mystery. In the next sentence, Sherlock Holmes himself : "It may be mentioned that Mr Ottavio Quattrochi, who is wanted in connection with the Bofors investigation, is now settled in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia" -- mystery solved. But then, caution -- lest someone accuse them of not giving the victim a fair chance: "Thanks to the secrecy surrounding all the goings-on in 10 Janpath, these claims could not be confirmed from there." But next, sticking bravely to the concoction : "However, sources in 10 Janpath agreed [as if they had earlier disagreed] that Mrs Gandhi would soon depart on a planned trip. [When was the last time you went on an unplanned trip?] They claimed that it was an 'annual sojourn'. However, they refused to comment when asked whether she was going to Europe or the United States or to a South East Asian country as indicated by sources close to her. The same sources claim that Mrs Gandhi will enter active politics provided the discussion in South East Asia proved fruitful."
Safe, all angles covered : if Sonia enters active politics, the discussions in South East Asia would have been successful; if she does not, they would have been unsuccessful. And whether the discussions took place at all, no one will be able to fathom "thanks to the secrecy surrounding all the goings-on in 10 Janpath."
Every ass knows that these days if you need to be in touch with someone, there is need not at all to meet him, that if you have to meet on the sly "a prominent Italian businessman" who is so prominently settled in Kuala Lumpur, the last place you'd go to is Malaysia. He could meet you in Europe without any of the six great papers in the world being any the wiser.
That was a single-column story on 22nd December. By 26 December, the conspiracy-theories had swollen to a five-column spread, "Is checkmated Sonia seeking BJP allies?" By now the sources were informing the sixth greatest fabricator that she was maintaining a "clandestine liaison" not just with "the prominent Italian businessman", but with the BJP! Sonia -- who till the other day was treated with such deference that if she met anyone, it was described as her giving "an audience" -- was now referred to as "the Italian daughter-in-law of Indira Gandhi who regarded the world as her oyster so long as the Congress was at her beck and call." The paper said that she had given her "secret blessings" to the pro-BJP utterances of Mamata Banerjee [whose expulsion, the paper had portrayed three days earlier as a sign of Sonia Gandhi's failure], and even the cross-overs of Kumarmangalam and Aslam Sher Khan had been given the go-ahead by "the Sonia camp". Scared as the paper said she is at the prospect of BJP's victory, would she be working to leave herself entirely defenceless by helping kill the Congress completely ?
Even a fool would know the answer, but what took the cake as far as I was concerned was the next nugget. "The group of advisers not averse to Mrs Gandhi having a tacit 'understanding' with the BJP to protect herself and the trusts and bodies named after the Nehru dynasty," the paper had uncovered, included none other than my own cousin-friend-brother-in-law, Suman Dubey! A more improbable advocate for a "clandestine-liaison", for anything "tacit" even the Vatican could not have found! By the next day, Mr Vajpayee had affirmed that there was nothing to the story. And Suman had been elevated : saying that "10 Janpath is becoming increasingly displeased" over stories of this kind, The Asian Age reported, "The report [the one in The Times of India] mentioned the names of Mr Suman Dubey and Ms Sheila Dixit as among her 'group of advisors'. Both the leaders promptly denied and wrote angry rebuttals..."
And between them The Pioneer and The Asian Age solved the mystery once and for all. The Pioneer informed us, "Mrs Sonia Gandhi is celebrating her Christmas vacation this year in Thailand..."-- as the day on which the report appeared was December 28, we could safely conclude that she was already in Thailand. The paper said that "Family troubles" -- which it identified as the desire of her son to marry a Columbian girl -- had made the chances of her "assuming a role in the coming poll", remote. That very day, The Asian Age's lead story was entitled, "Sonia will campaign for Congress finally." The paper assured us that she had finally made up her mind to do so, and that her detailed tour programme was likely to be announced in two-three days. As for her travel plans, the paper quoted her spokesman as saying, "...She had no plans to visit the United States. She is very much here and will be here."
I am not on the accuracy of such fabrications, but on the fact that the paper, The Times of India, which was till the other day in the forefront of fabricating stories to do in the BJP is now fabricating them against Sonia Gandhi! From this I deduce that Sonia is not the only one who is running scared at what the BJP may do about investigations that are in the works.
"But by going in for these alliances, by admitting these persons the BJP is losing its character," the carpers say today. But that complaint lies better with communalists like me, for you, my friends, are the ones who have been denouncing the original character as "Fascism" -- the austerity you saw in some of them, you denounced as "puritanism", the discipline as proof of authoritarianism, that they talked of Hinduism, as proof of "right-wing fanaticism", that they were for a Common Civil Code and against Article 370 as proof of their determination to erase minorities and their "identity", that they would commence their meetings with invocations to the motherland as proof of planning "pogroms of Muslims". So, friends, if the party is shedding that character, why are you again in a tizzy ?
For years now I have been dumbfounded at the sheer irresponsibility of the controllers of discourse here. By singing hosannas to socialism, by painting Rajaji and others in vile colours, by glossing over everything which was being done in the name of socialism -- the inefficiencies of public sector units, the ruinous adventures of Mrs Gandhi : the nationalizations, for instance -- these persons caused the country to lose a generation. They have repeated the same sequence and inflicted as much injury through "secularism". By denouncing AASU as the tool of communalists, by unnerving governments when they tried to repatriate Bangladeshis, these cavilers made the country into a wastepaper basket that must by definition take in the discards of others. By concocting stories against our forces in Punjab and Kashmir, they facilitated the task of terrorists.
In exactly the same way, by making the BJP out to be such a demon, they have sown great trouble for the future. Suppose for a moment that, in spite of them, the BJP does come to power. Would their past propaganda not scare away scarce foreign resources? Which investor in his right mind would want to invest in a country which is soon going to be plunged into "pogroms" and a consequential civil war ? Would the Muslims not be thrown into dread? Would that panic not become self-fulfilling? The assumption having been drilled into them that the BJP will launch "pogroms", some sections will prepare for the denouement.... On the other side, the calumny would certainly have caused a heap of resentment to pile up among many Hindus. They will be bursting to take it out -- exactly what happened in the case of the Babri mosque.
But do our friends care ?
Of course, the BJP would be ill-advised if it set store by the sudden turn-around in the press. Just recall the glowing accounts these papers used to write about Mr. Narasimha Rao as the modern Chanakya. Just recall the cover-stories they were putting out just a few months ago about "King Kesri". And see what they are writing about these very persons today.
As Mr Vajpayee has said, every seat will have to be fought for diligently. Thus far, the main thing that has happened is the disarray in the Congress and in the United Front. On the other side are the two main achievements of the BJP : it has been functioning as a team, its campaign is off and running while the others are bogged down explaining departures; and it has a prime ministerial candidate while others have none. But as the days go by, the difficulties which inhere in the successes of the past two weeks will surface. Some of the persons who have crossed over will prove difficult to digest. The very fact that the party is now seen as the one liable to win will intensify the jostling for its nominations. Through all these pulls and pressures the leadership will have to squeeze in at least a few candidates who are better equipped to man a government. More than all this, the party will soon have to decide how much of a Congress it can afford to be : the AGP in Assam became a Congress all right, and won. But see the ditch in which it is...
And if the party is not able to vault over these dilemmas, or if the lust for office prevails over their personal animosities, those ardent secularists -- Mulayam Singh, Kanshi Ram, Laloo and the rest -- may still "come together" for polling day. The papers will somersault again, and again cry "Victory". "BJP fails to live up to its hype," the very ones who would have created that hype will proclaim...
December 12, 1997
These days when those guardians of secularism, our newspapers, refer to the Secular Front, they put the label -- "Secular" -- as well as the excuse -- "to combat communal forces" -- within inverted commas! Those who used to preface their remarks about Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee with, "The right man in the wrong party", suddenly emphasize only "The right man" part! "Things are all going right," says a person who has feasted off secular governments for ten years, as I run into him -- I don't immediately get what he thinks is going right, so out of touch have I been with him. "I mean, we are not going to get just a stable government, we are going to get a BJP government," he says enthusiastically. Suddenly multinationals are analyzing my friend Gurumurthy's articles and speeches -- how far will they take "swadeshi"?, they want to know, to what extent does the party share his views?, they search. Who will be the Finance Minister?, they ask.
Sitting alone in my study, poring over law reports of distant Pakistan, I am roused to the change. Friends ring up, distant acquaintances -- they want to help a national cause, they say; they want to reach Mr. Vajpayee and Mr. Advani through "a completely reliable person," "and who could be more reliable than you ?" All because I am "close-to-BJP" by acclamation, courtesy our secularist newspapers. The boons labelers confer... But how deep these impressions are etched : when I tell the callers the truth, as I ask them to contact someone like my friends Gurumurthy and Arun Jaitley, they conclude I am being difficult.
Thus, one of the rules in discourse is, "Even calumny has its recompense" -- were I to do no more than keep silent and not deny the rumour, I could, at least for a few weeks, make a handsome killing! The other rule surely is, "The greater the calumny, the swifter the turn-around." Secularists are the ones who have prepared the ground for the turn-around. In the name of secularism, in the name of "keeping the communal monster at bay", they legitimized the ganging up of all sorts -- with what face can they denounce the BJP today as it does the same thing ? Indeed, their discomfiture is even greater : for some of the persons and groups who are crossing over are the very ones whom the secularists had built up as the great dykes against communalism. Not only are they crossing over, while doing so they are declaring again and again that "secularism" was just a pretense, an excuse for grabbing office. "No party has pursued communal and casteist politics for as long as the Congress," declares the Congressman. "Behind the slogan of social justice, Laloo and Mulayam Singh have only spread casteism," says the progressive. "The Congress has only used the Muslims as a vote-bank," says the Muslim leader. "Kanshi Ram and Mayawati are not interested in the welfare of Dalits at all," certifies the BSP leader, "They are only interested in their dictatorship and corruption." "The Congress has done nothing for the tribals, it has just used and exploited them," says the tribal leader.
But isn't that exactly what communalists like me have been saying all along ?!
And there is always The Times Of India, one of the six great weather-vanes in the world. In the days that preceded Justice Sinha's judgment, it did all it could to denigrate JP and the students' movement. When in the wake of the judgment, it seemed for a moment that Mrs Gandhi could not hold on, the paper pronounced it was time for her to go. She had but to impose the Emergency, and this great oracle was denouncing JP -- he had compelled Mrs. Gandhi to call a halt to anarchy, she had been left with no alternative, she just had to move to save the country from foreign-controlled conspirators. Throughout the Emergency, it kept up a chorus -- paeans to trains running on time. The 1977 election results had but to come in, and its stalwarts declared, "We have been through veritable hell." A hell worse than the others, they said : for the others were doing the easy thing -- opposing the Emergency openly; the paper had been left with the much more onerous and dangerous task -- of opposing it from within while making sure that no one realized it was doing so!
In line with this tradition, the paper has let few excel it during the last few years in fabricating stories about the BJP -- one month the RSS had decided to dump Advani for Vajpayee, the next the RSS had decided to dump Vajpayee... The paper is still fabricating stories -- but now to catch BJP's eye!
On 22 December, it carries a story about Sonia going abroad. While published accounts say she is going to Europe to meet her son, the paper reports, "informed sources close to 10 Janpath claim [why they should advance the claim to The Times of India is naturally a trade secret] that it is not a vacation trip but is connected with serious business relating to her family matters..." "The same sources claim that Mrs. Gandhi will be visiting a South East Asian country, where she is expected to meet with a prominent Italian businessman who left the country several years ago." Mystery, mystery. In the next sentence, Sherlock Holmes himself : "It may be mentioned that Mr Ottavio Quattrochi, who is wanted in connection with the Bofors investigation, is now settled in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia" -- mystery solved. But then, caution -- lest someone accuse them of not giving the victim a fair chance: "Thanks to the secrecy surrounding all the goings-on in 10 Janpath, these claims could not be confirmed from there." But next, sticking bravely to the concoction : "However, sources in 10 Janpath agreed [as if they had earlier disagreed] that Mrs Gandhi would soon depart on a planned trip. [When was the last time you went on an unplanned trip?] They claimed that it was an 'annual sojourn'. However, they refused to comment when asked whether she was going to Europe or the United States or to a South East Asian country as indicated by sources close to her. The same sources claim that Mrs Gandhi will enter active politics provided the discussion in South East Asia proved fruitful."
Safe, all angles covered : if Sonia enters active politics, the discussions in South East Asia would have been successful; if she does not, they would have been unsuccessful. And whether the discussions took place at all, no one will be able to fathom "thanks to the secrecy surrounding all the goings-on in 10 Janpath."
Every ass knows that these days if you need to be in touch with someone, there is need not at all to meet him, that if you have to meet on the sly "a prominent Italian businessman" who is so prominently settled in Kuala Lumpur, the last place you'd go to is Malaysia. He could meet you in Europe without any of the six great papers in the world being any the wiser.
That was a single-column story on 22nd December. By 26 December, the conspiracy-theories had swollen to a five-column spread, "Is checkmated Sonia seeking BJP allies?" By now the sources were informing the sixth greatest fabricator that she was maintaining a "clandestine liaison" not just with "the prominent Italian businessman", but with the BJP! Sonia -- who till the other day was treated with such deference that if she met anyone, it was described as her giving "an audience" -- was now referred to as "the Italian daughter-in-law of Indira Gandhi who regarded the world as her oyster so long as the Congress was at her beck and call." The paper said that she had given her "secret blessings" to the pro-BJP utterances of Mamata Banerjee [whose expulsion, the paper had portrayed three days earlier as a sign of Sonia Gandhi's failure], and even the cross-overs of Kumarmangalam and Aslam Sher Khan had been given the go-ahead by "the Sonia camp". Scared as the paper said she is at the prospect of BJP's victory, would she be working to leave herself entirely defenceless by helping kill the Congress completely ?
Even a fool would know the answer, but what took the cake as far as I was concerned was the next nugget. "The group of advisers not averse to Mrs Gandhi having a tacit 'understanding' with the BJP to protect herself and the trusts and bodies named after the Nehru dynasty," the paper had uncovered, included none other than my own cousin-friend-brother-in-law, Suman Dubey! A more improbable advocate for a "clandestine-liaison", for anything "tacit" even the Vatican could not have found! By the next day, Mr Vajpayee had affirmed that there was nothing to the story. And Suman had been elevated : saying that "10 Janpath is becoming increasingly displeased" over stories of this kind, The Asian Age reported, "The report [the one in The Times of India] mentioned the names of Mr Suman Dubey and Ms Sheila Dixit as among her 'group of advisors'. Both the leaders promptly denied and wrote angry rebuttals..."
And between them The Pioneer and The Asian Age solved the mystery once and for all. The Pioneer informed us, "Mrs Sonia Gandhi is celebrating her Christmas vacation this year in Thailand..."-- as the day on which the report appeared was December 28, we could safely conclude that she was already in Thailand. The paper said that "Family troubles" -- which it identified as the desire of her son to marry a Columbian girl -- had made the chances of her "assuming a role in the coming poll", remote. That very day, The Asian Age's lead story was entitled, "Sonia will campaign for Congress finally." The paper assured us that she had finally made up her mind to do so, and that her detailed tour programme was likely to be announced in two-three days. As for her travel plans, the paper quoted her spokesman as saying, "...She had no plans to visit the United States. She is very much here and will be here."
I am not on the accuracy of such fabrications, but on the fact that the paper, The Times of India, which was till the other day in the forefront of fabricating stories to do in the BJP is now fabricating them against Sonia Gandhi! From this I deduce that Sonia is not the only one who is running scared at what the BJP may do about investigations that are in the works.
"But by going in for these alliances, by admitting these persons the BJP is losing its character," the carpers say today. But that complaint lies better with communalists like me, for you, my friends, are the ones who have been denouncing the original character as "Fascism" -- the austerity you saw in some of them, you denounced as "puritanism", the discipline as proof of authoritarianism, that they talked of Hinduism, as proof of "right-wing fanaticism", that they were for a Common Civil Code and against Article 370 as proof of their determination to erase minorities and their "identity", that they would commence their meetings with invocations to the motherland as proof of planning "pogroms of Muslims". So, friends, if the party is shedding that character, why are you again in a tizzy ?
For years now I have been dumbfounded at the sheer irresponsibility of the controllers of discourse here. By singing hosannas to socialism, by painting Rajaji and others in vile colours, by glossing over everything which was being done in the name of socialism -- the inefficiencies of public sector units, the ruinous adventures of Mrs Gandhi : the nationalizations, for instance -- these persons caused the country to lose a generation. They have repeated the same sequence and inflicted as much injury through "secularism". By denouncing AASU as the tool of communalists, by unnerving governments when they tried to repatriate Bangladeshis, these cavilers made the country into a wastepaper basket that must by definition take in the discards of others. By concocting stories against our forces in Punjab and Kashmir, they facilitated the task of terrorists.
In exactly the same way, by making the BJP out to be such a demon, they have sown great trouble for the future. Suppose for a moment that, in spite of them, the BJP does come to power. Would their past propaganda not scare away scarce foreign resources? Which investor in his right mind would want to invest in a country which is soon going to be plunged into "pogroms" and a consequential civil war ? Would the Muslims not be thrown into dread? Would that panic not become self-fulfilling? The assumption having been drilled into them that the BJP will launch "pogroms", some sections will prepare for the denouement.... On the other side, the calumny would certainly have caused a heap of resentment to pile up among many Hindus. They will be bursting to take it out -- exactly what happened in the case of the Babri mosque.
But do our friends care ?
Of course, the BJP would be ill-advised if it set store by the sudden turn-around in the press. Just recall the glowing accounts these papers used to write about Mr. Narasimha Rao as the modern Chanakya. Just recall the cover-stories they were putting out just a few months ago about "King Kesri". And see what they are writing about these very persons today.
As Mr Vajpayee has said, every seat will have to be fought for diligently. Thus far, the main thing that has happened is the disarray in the Congress and in the United Front. On the other side are the two main achievements of the BJP : it has been functioning as a team, its campaign is off and running while the others are bogged down explaining departures; and it has a prime ministerial candidate while others have none. But as the days go by, the difficulties which inhere in the successes of the past two weeks will surface. Some of the persons who have crossed over will prove difficult to digest. The very fact that the party is now seen as the one liable to win will intensify the jostling for its nominations. Through all these pulls and pressures the leadership will have to squeeze in at least a few candidates who are better equipped to man a government. More than all this, the party will soon have to decide how much of a Congress it can afford to be : the AGP in Assam became a Congress all right, and won. But see the ditch in which it is...
And if the party is not able to vault over these dilemmas, or if the lust for office prevails over their personal animosities, those ardent secularists -- Mulayam Singh, Kanshi Ram, Laloo and the rest -- may still "come together" for polling day. The papers will somersault again, and again cry "Victory". "BJP fails to live up to its hype," the very ones who would have created that hype will proclaim...
December 12, 1997
Contrivances Replace Contrivances With Contrivances With Contrivances
Arun Shourie
Will a government which hasn't been there all along, finally go? Will its departure lead to elections or will it be replaced by a new government which will be there no more than the one which was never there and has at last gone? In a word, the first feature of what was happening was that everything could happen.
Second, that at the end of the line there would be a principle waiting to explain whatever eventually happened. Third, the issue which had been used to trigger the entire chain of events was one which wasn't there either, least of all in the eyes of those who had used it.
For there is absolutely nothing, not one fact in the Jain Commission report which could have been a sudden revelation to Congress. More than that, there are as many facts which would nail Congressmen as those which would inconvenience others: That Indira Gandhi and Rajiv had patronised LTTE, that the greed of the local Congressmen themselves for votes is what had dragged Rajiv to the venue, that the trial for Rajiv's assassination had been going on for six years, that in fact it had been concluded and none connected with DMK had been named thus far even as an accessory to the crime, that the assassination had been executed when a government propped by Rajiv and Congress was in office in Delhi and the state was under President's rule...
Most embarrassing of all: Not once in eleven years had Congress either acted on or demanded that anyone else act on the report of the Commission on the assassination of Mrs Gandhi. After all, we must assume that Mrs Gandhi has been as dear to Congressmen as Rajiv. And that Commission was not just about Rajiv's mother, it had been instituted by Rajiv himself, and it had reported its findings when Rajiv was himself the Prime Minister.
"We will table the Thakkar Commission Report," J H Patel, the chief minister of Karnataka, threatened one day, "as well as the Bofors papers." But hadn't the government already tabled the Thakkar report, I asked Congressmen. They didn't remember. When that report was tabled, was it accompanied by an ATR, I asked. They didn't remember.
For those who sought to corner the government on the basis of the Jain Commission's report both the government and the report were contrivances. But the ones who were doing so were themselves contrivances -- actually, they were straining so that The Unknown would deign to pick them up as her contrivances. A contrivance of a government buffeted on a contrivance of an issue by persons whose highest aspiration is that they be adopted as a contrivance by The One behind the Wall. And yet we make-believe that we are not a Banana Republic.
And what they led to was more a result of things gathering a momentum of their own than of design, save in one particular.
The assassinations of Mrs Gandhi and of Rajiv are the only USPs which Congress has had in the last decade.
But even it has been unsure that they would fetch votes yet again -- recall the lukewarm wording of the initial resolution, the 'We-cannot-go-by-press-reports' statements of those purveyors of the day's inanities, the party's spokesmen.
But then three factors took over. Congressmen realised that if even on Rajiv's assassination the party seemed indifferent, if even in the face of this it repeated the old line -- as Kesri had done, "I am an old man, at no cost will I do anything which will help BJP" - they would be completely forfeiting their USP. Second, faction play in the party took over -- that Kesri could be cornered for not having been sufficiently outraged became a handle for every other 'stalwart' in the party. And then there was the uncertainty about how much sobbing alone would assuage Sonia.
It is quite natural that the initial lukewarmness should have upset Sonia -- after all, here was a lot that had been living off the name of her husband and mother-in-law for decades, and when the time had come by their indifference they had shown that it had been all a put-on.
But there was also prudence and calculation, and this is the part which design played: Had not the Swiss representative at the Interpol conference in Delhi revealed that the rest of the Bofors papers would be handed over to the Indian Government before the end of the year?... The moment her preference became known, every 'stalwart' strained to outdo the others in living up to her anxieties.
Competition, thus, became stampede. And desperation was transformed into hope: With their state units in tatters, Congressmen have been dreading elections; but now they had rushed to a precipice, and as a man who sees at the last moment that he has nowhere to go but over the cliff, shuts his eyes, shouts, 'Jai Bajrang Bali', and leaps, they convinced themselves that at last they had got an issue which would move people, that Sonia will get them votes.
They jumped all right, but, midway down, panic struck again: Which is the state in which this gamble will pay off?, they asked their leaders.
No one could name one. And so another round of meetings, another round of formulae, another round of blaming each other for pushing the party into a situation it had not bargained for.
This was one half of the picture: Congress is just tremulous shadow. The other half was: The government had been a shadow standing on this shadow.
Who can work up sorrow at the passing of such a phantom? Who can be elated at its survival?
Or at its being replaced by some other ghost? But the problem is that this last government has not been some exception, it has been the norm.
How can a country, with a ruling class in this mode, survive?
For the moment we can console ourselves a bit by the fact that even such a denouement serves a purpose: That of education.
Once again leaders have bared their true character for the people. Remember what happened at the time of the debate on Deve Gowda's ouster? 'Under no circumstances shall we let down our colleague and leader, Mr Deve Gowda,' they swore in the Lok Sabha. And it transpired that at the very moment they were swearing fidelity in the House, they were asking Congress who else should they put in place. In this round too, nothing that they said was final, at each turn everything was possible. That is the most important lesson: Unless persons of character are put in office no constitutional scheme will work, the country cannot be saved.
The second lesson we must remember the next time we go to vote: If once again we vote by caste and the like, the result will be another fractured Parliament, another round of non-governments. The long term problems have already become so large that one despairs whether they can ever be solved in a democratic set up. Another round of the last ten years, and they would have swollen enough to bury us.
Clearly, to lift the people out of considerations like caste, a real choice has to be put before them. This is where recent maneuvers within and of BJP have caused so much distress across the country.
Among section after section there has been the notion that all is not yet lost, that there is still one group which, once it gets a chance, will pull the country back on the rails, and that is BJP.
Across the country ordinary people have pegged their residual hope on this notion. But BJP seems to have thought fit to proceed on the opposite premise: It seems set on convincing the people, "See, we are no different from the others -- do not be afraid of us, do not treat us as untouchables." This decision has been a real blow to the assumption which many had clutched as a reason for clinging to hope. Moreover, at least I do not think this new avatar is going to fetch votes either -- how can people work up an enthusiasm for another 'just-like-them'?
Therefore, for the party which faces the greatest choice, the moral is: Give people a real choice, be visibly better.
Whether one contrivance goes or another comes, elections are the inevitable and only way out, and, when they come, everyone can help: Students' organisations by refusing to do the running around till their party removes criminals from its list, businessmen by denying payments to a party unless it fields candidates who are manifestly qualified to be legislators, to man governments, journalists by mercilessly nailing the record of candidates, citizens' groups by monitoring the conduct of parties and candidates during elections.
But given the condition to which affairs have descended, two more tests are needed. The first concerns political parties. From being movements, they became machines for winning elections. But even that stage is past: Today they are contrivances for mustering post-election majorities. But such organs cannot sustain democracy.
Therefore, we should look for the party which takes steps to, and which places itself in the hands of persons who will reconstruct the party into an instrument for actually doing something for the people. When it is not in government as much as when it is in power.
Second, the last few rounds teach us that replacing one individual at the top by another makes little difference now: Narasimha Rao was very competent in many ways, I K Gujral is a decent man, but in spite of them the longer run deterioration has continued. Even replacing one party by another no longer makes much difference. Each of them has replaced several others in states and at the Centre from time to time, but the secular decline of governance has continued, the long term problems have continued to fester. In addition to looking for the party which has better candidates, therefore, we should look for the party which works out sensible ideas for changing the electoral and constitutional system itself, which makes them a part of its electoral platform, for the party which seems the one more likely to carry through those changes.
The Observer
November 28, 1997
Will a government which hasn't been there all along, finally go? Will its departure lead to elections or will it be replaced by a new government which will be there no more than the one which was never there and has at last gone? In a word, the first feature of what was happening was that everything could happen.
Second, that at the end of the line there would be a principle waiting to explain whatever eventually happened. Third, the issue which had been used to trigger the entire chain of events was one which wasn't there either, least of all in the eyes of those who had used it.
For there is absolutely nothing, not one fact in the Jain Commission report which could have been a sudden revelation to Congress. More than that, there are as many facts which would nail Congressmen as those which would inconvenience others: That Indira Gandhi and Rajiv had patronised LTTE, that the greed of the local Congressmen themselves for votes is what had dragged Rajiv to the venue, that the trial for Rajiv's assassination had been going on for six years, that in fact it had been concluded and none connected with DMK had been named thus far even as an accessory to the crime, that the assassination had been executed when a government propped by Rajiv and Congress was in office in Delhi and the state was under President's rule...
Most embarrassing of all: Not once in eleven years had Congress either acted on or demanded that anyone else act on the report of the Commission on the assassination of Mrs Gandhi. After all, we must assume that Mrs Gandhi has been as dear to Congressmen as Rajiv. And that Commission was not just about Rajiv's mother, it had been instituted by Rajiv himself, and it had reported its findings when Rajiv was himself the Prime Minister.
"We will table the Thakkar Commission Report," J H Patel, the chief minister of Karnataka, threatened one day, "as well as the Bofors papers." But hadn't the government already tabled the Thakkar report, I asked Congressmen. They didn't remember. When that report was tabled, was it accompanied by an ATR, I asked. They didn't remember.
For those who sought to corner the government on the basis of the Jain Commission's report both the government and the report were contrivances. But the ones who were doing so were themselves contrivances -- actually, they were straining so that The Unknown would deign to pick them up as her contrivances. A contrivance of a government buffeted on a contrivance of an issue by persons whose highest aspiration is that they be adopted as a contrivance by The One behind the Wall. And yet we make-believe that we are not a Banana Republic.
And what they led to was more a result of things gathering a momentum of their own than of design, save in one particular.
The assassinations of Mrs Gandhi and of Rajiv are the only USPs which Congress has had in the last decade.
But even it has been unsure that they would fetch votes yet again -- recall the lukewarm wording of the initial resolution, the 'We-cannot-go-by-press-reports' statements of those purveyors of the day's inanities, the party's spokesmen.
But then three factors took over. Congressmen realised that if even on Rajiv's assassination the party seemed indifferent, if even in the face of this it repeated the old line -- as Kesri had done, "I am an old man, at no cost will I do anything which will help BJP" - they would be completely forfeiting their USP. Second, faction play in the party took over -- that Kesri could be cornered for not having been sufficiently outraged became a handle for every other 'stalwart' in the party. And then there was the uncertainty about how much sobbing alone would assuage Sonia.
It is quite natural that the initial lukewarmness should have upset Sonia -- after all, here was a lot that had been living off the name of her husband and mother-in-law for decades, and when the time had come by their indifference they had shown that it had been all a put-on.
But there was also prudence and calculation, and this is the part which design played: Had not the Swiss representative at the Interpol conference in Delhi revealed that the rest of the Bofors papers would be handed over to the Indian Government before the end of the year?... The moment her preference became known, every 'stalwart' strained to outdo the others in living up to her anxieties.
Competition, thus, became stampede. And desperation was transformed into hope: With their state units in tatters, Congressmen have been dreading elections; but now they had rushed to a precipice, and as a man who sees at the last moment that he has nowhere to go but over the cliff, shuts his eyes, shouts, 'Jai Bajrang Bali', and leaps, they convinced themselves that at last they had got an issue which would move people, that Sonia will get them votes.
They jumped all right, but, midway down, panic struck again: Which is the state in which this gamble will pay off?, they asked their leaders.
No one could name one. And so another round of meetings, another round of formulae, another round of blaming each other for pushing the party into a situation it had not bargained for.
This was one half of the picture: Congress is just tremulous shadow. The other half was: The government had been a shadow standing on this shadow.
Who can work up sorrow at the passing of such a phantom? Who can be elated at its survival?
Or at its being replaced by some other ghost? But the problem is that this last government has not been some exception, it has been the norm.
How can a country, with a ruling class in this mode, survive?
For the moment we can console ourselves a bit by the fact that even such a denouement serves a purpose: That of education.
Once again leaders have bared their true character for the people. Remember what happened at the time of the debate on Deve Gowda's ouster? 'Under no circumstances shall we let down our colleague and leader, Mr Deve Gowda,' they swore in the Lok Sabha. And it transpired that at the very moment they were swearing fidelity in the House, they were asking Congress who else should they put in place. In this round too, nothing that they said was final, at each turn everything was possible. That is the most important lesson: Unless persons of character are put in office no constitutional scheme will work, the country cannot be saved.
The second lesson we must remember the next time we go to vote: If once again we vote by caste and the like, the result will be another fractured Parliament, another round of non-governments. The long term problems have already become so large that one despairs whether they can ever be solved in a democratic set up. Another round of the last ten years, and they would have swollen enough to bury us.
Clearly, to lift the people out of considerations like caste, a real choice has to be put before them. This is where recent maneuvers within and of BJP have caused so much distress across the country.
Among section after section there has been the notion that all is not yet lost, that there is still one group which, once it gets a chance, will pull the country back on the rails, and that is BJP.
Across the country ordinary people have pegged their residual hope on this notion. But BJP seems to have thought fit to proceed on the opposite premise: It seems set on convincing the people, "See, we are no different from the others -- do not be afraid of us, do not treat us as untouchables." This decision has been a real blow to the assumption which many had clutched as a reason for clinging to hope. Moreover, at least I do not think this new avatar is going to fetch votes either -- how can people work up an enthusiasm for another 'just-like-them'?
Therefore, for the party which faces the greatest choice, the moral is: Give people a real choice, be visibly better.
Whether one contrivance goes or another comes, elections are the inevitable and only way out, and, when they come, everyone can help: Students' organisations by refusing to do the running around till their party removes criminals from its list, businessmen by denying payments to a party unless it fields candidates who are manifestly qualified to be legislators, to man governments, journalists by mercilessly nailing the record of candidates, citizens' groups by monitoring the conduct of parties and candidates during elections.
But given the condition to which affairs have descended, two more tests are needed. The first concerns political parties. From being movements, they became machines for winning elections. But even that stage is past: Today they are contrivances for mustering post-election majorities. But such organs cannot sustain democracy.
Therefore, we should look for the party which takes steps to, and which places itself in the hands of persons who will reconstruct the party into an instrument for actually doing something for the people. When it is not in government as much as when it is in power.
Second, the last few rounds teach us that replacing one individual at the top by another makes little difference now: Narasimha Rao was very competent in many ways, I K Gujral is a decent man, but in spite of them the longer run deterioration has continued. Even replacing one party by another no longer makes much difference. Each of them has replaced several others in states and at the Centre from time to time, but the secular decline of governance has continued, the long term problems have continued to fester. In addition to looking for the party which has better candidates, therefore, we should look for the party which works out sensible ideas for changing the electoral and constitutional system itself, which makes them a part of its electoral platform, for the party which seems the one more likely to carry through those changes.
The Observer
November 28, 1997
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